My Trip To Colorado Part III: The Search for The Empire Who Strikes Back Against the Return of the Electric Boogaloo

Today will constitute Part III, and after that I will never, ever speak of this trip again.

So where was I? Oh, right, heading down that hill for the millionth time:

Once again I walked, because it was broad daylight, and because I planned to check out some of the IMBA Summit action, after which I was ostensibly supposed to give some sort of talk--or, as the schedule put it:

4:45-6 Bike Snob NYC hosts a lively recap of the day's discussions (plennary, with beverages for all guests)

Which would of course get all the attendees psyched up for the next item on the agenda:

Dinner on your own

"Dude, like sooo stoked for dinner on my own!," a lot of people wearing baggy mountain bike shorts could be heard exclaiming.

Wherever there are bike events there are tents, and under those tents you will find products. Here's the Honey Stinger tent:

Notice how the woman working the tent is shielding her face, which is how people typically react to me:

Actually, she's probably just adjusting her glasses, but I always assume everything's about me.

Anyway, you probably know Honey Stinger for their famous waffles, which are quite tasty. In fact, you could easily mistake them for a regular snack--that is until the bloating and flatulence common to all energy foods kicks in and you realize you've been had.

Oh, here are a couple of disembodied hands:

One is wielding a toothpick, and the other is probing a plate of orange globules.

I am a photojournalist.

Here's another tent shielding representatives of the "World's Only Underground Mountain Bike Park" from the deadly rays of the sun:

(Underground mountain bikers don't "do" sun.)

The acronym for "World's Only Underground Mountain Bike Park" could almost be "WOMB," which would be cool, so if they moved the park to the surface of the earth they'd at least be one letter closer, as the acronym would then be "WOMBP." Of course, then they'd have a hard time defending the bold claim that they're the "World's Only Mountain Bike Park." As it is, even claiming they're the world's only underground mountain bike park is a stretch, because when it snows I like to ride my mountain bike on the subway tracks, so you could say I invented the concept.*

*[Disclaimer: this is a lie. Riding a bicycle on the subway tracks will result in death by high voltage, steel wheels, and hungry rats, probably in that order.]

So what's the difference between roadies and mountain bikers? Sure, they dress differently and they ride different bikes, but it goes much deeper than that. Consider the fact that mountain bikers must use tools to maintain the trails on which they ride, whereas roadies don't do anything to help anybody, and are merely tools themselves:

Granted, I don't do crap by way of trail-building or maintenance, but that's going to change when I finally take delivery of the Sutter 300 Bull-Doze-O-Matic I ordered:

What can I say? It was an impulse buy.

Central Park's about to get some sweet new mountain bike trails, and I'm sure the Parks Department won't mind at all.

With some exceptions, I think it's probably a pretty bad idea to allow electric-assist mountain bikes on trails, though by far the most memorable part of the session was when the guy from Specialized concocted an elaborate metaphor involving a cyborg horse in order to make a point about e-bikes I was entirely unable to discern.

So remember: when Specialized introduces an S-Works line of equestrian supplies and crabon robo-horses, you read about it here first.

From the e-bike session I then hopped into the fat bike session taking place next door:

Fat Bikes and Trail Access: Considered a fad just a few years ago, fat bikes have emerged as a meaningful trend in bicycling with application to winter sports, sand sports and backcountry travel. The go-everywhere capability of fat bikes has inspired discussions about how to best manage their use at Nordic facilities, multi-use trails and public beaches. Facilitated by IMBA Upper Midwest Region Director Hansi Johnson. Invited speakers include Gary Sjoquist, QBP/Salsa; Andy Williams, Grand Targhee Resort; Candy Fletcher, Marquetter County Convention and Visitors Bureau Recreation Marketing Director.
Oddly, it was 40 degrees colder in the fat bike room, there was the sound of howling wind, and everyone had crew cuts and talked like "Fargo:"

The one thing I took away from this session is that fat bikers spend an insane amount of time grooming snowy trails in order to make them rideable, which surprised me, because I thought the whole point of fat bikes was that you could ride them anywhere. Honestly, if you have to drive around all day on a snowmobile before you can even think of going for a ride then it hardly seems worth it. Plus, while all the fat bikers are out doing that, who the hell is at home shoveling the walk?

Surly should come out with a new fat bike and call it the "Divorce Attorney."

While it is refreshing to see a woman associated with mtbiking not covered in tattoos, I have to ask what is going on in her abdominal area? Does she have a purse under her shirt? A kid? An alien getting ready to burst forth?

' at which point a dozen or so preternaturally fit and talented Colorado children would ride their bikes right over my face.'

As someone who occasionally pretends to be competent, or moderately fit enough, to ride a mountain bike in Colorado, I can confirm this to be partially true. That is to say, I've had my ass handed to me by women, children, dudes way older than me, and trail runners.. but - they are all extremely nice, and even encouraging about leaving you in the dust.

Are you sure those are air quotes and not the opening scene from King Lear where the Earl of Kent is introduced to the Earl of Gloucester's bastard son Edmund (who was just mean to everyone) as staged with finger puppets?

Jesus tits. Moots loaned you a road bike with cable-actuated shitting!?! What kind of rinky dink operation are they running down there? Don't they know that the rain and cold temperatures, coupled with the lack of oxygen, could have left you without enough hand strength to shift? You should have thrown the bike into the Yampa and told them to fuck off. That would have been hardcore - maybe even YRHC.

I feel that the materials and craftsmanship that go into a titanium bike will hold their value much better than any crapon fibre product, so not only does one get a sweet ride they get a good investment as well.

Sheldon says more:"These generalities, however, are basically meaningless, because you wouldn't build frames out of the three different metals to the same tubing dimensions!

Real bicycles take the nature of the material into account in selecting the diameter and wall thickness of each piece of tubing that goes to make up the frame. Stiffness is mainly related to the tubing diameter. Strength is mainly related to the wall thickness, though diameter also enters into it. Weight is affected both by diameter and wall thickness."

Yeah thanks for the study opportunity but it would seem titanium's advantage is in subtle shit like elastic deformation and the stiffness-to-weight ratio. Though fucking with poor people is a bonus I hadn't thought of. Kind of true though -- it's not like Latin America is poor, while meanwhile we JUST HAPPEN to have the wealth & energy to build shit out of titanium. We set up wealth-extracting systems (a.k.a. corporations) in those countries years ago. And now those people want to follow their own wealth up here to where it's located now, and we're like, oh heeyall no, we're gonna build a wall along the border.

Buffalo Bill - in addition to being a fucking idiot who trolls his friends as well as trolling strangers on the internet, your statement is a logical fallacy in that it attempts to generalize from the bulk properties of materials to the properties of articles made from that material. Who gives a shit if Ti is heavier than aluminum and weaker than steel in bulk? It's the properties of the article made from that material that matter. Empirically, Ti frames are lighter than steel and similar to Al frames. Subjectively, people say that they admire the ride qualities of Ti over steel or Al.

Geez, tone it down kids. My trolling comment was a completely true statement about the differences between three metals. I'm sure your ti bicyclecycles are very nice indeed. You don't need to defend your purchase decisions to anyone.

"Steel is the heaviest, has an infinite fatigue life and a short corrosion life if not kept painted."

As a follow up: - Stainless steel has an (almost) infinite corrosion life. - A bicycle frame made from an extreme high strength steel alloy (like Reynolds 953) would weigh about the same as an equal strength Ti frame. But the steel tube thickness would be so thin it would be extremely vulnerable to denting.

Hey Snob that thing must have felt all kinds of weird to you with that short stem on it?

All this talk of exotic frame materials has got me itching for the ole ti fred chariot. Its no Moots but its light and fast, sexy bare metal and a ride like butta. I'm off to look down my nose at the peasants as they toil in the fields.

1. informal make a deliberately offensive or provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them. "if people are obviously trolling then I'll delete your posts and do my best to ban you" 2. fish by trailing a baited line along behind a boat. "we trolled for mackerel"

I'm impressed with the way Snobby lays out his spandex to dry, but there's no hint as to whether he washes his stuff in the correct manner.

Perhaps a spandex washing and drying tutorial could be the subject of tomorrow's treatise?

Here's a few quick tips to get the ball rolling; in hotel rooms, soak your spandex in hot water in a basin. Add a squirt of shampoo or body wash or any liquid soapy stuff and mush up your spandex, "massaging" the cleansing consommé into all the little micro fibres.

Then rinse thoroughly and wring dry as best you can with your hands. After that, lay out a towel in the same way you would a beach towel at a beach. Place your hand-dried-spandex, one item at a time, in the middle of the towel and "wrap it up", then, grabbing it at both ends, twist it tight squishing the life and any remaining moisture out of the spandex.

This practice works best (both as an observer or participant) if you have two naked people twisting the towel at either end.

Finally, you drape the nearly-dry spandex on the antlers of the mounted-moose-head-trophy nearest the air conditioning unit, which turn up to full blast, and it dries in next to no time.

What could possibly be a better way to say "fuck you" to poor people than to ride a titanium bike. I'm sure they note the nuances of different frame materials as you pass them by and subsequently equate the discrepancies of the socio-economic conditions between the you (the rider) and themselves (the viewer).

I'm sure that poorer people might be jonesin' on escalades, but I doubt most bikes riders give a second glance at a Ti bike, assuming they know one when they see it.

If you choose your bike for snob appeal, or so you can feel better about your income, you need to spend more time riding with folks who are fitter than yourself, cause money won't replace hard work, good genes, and youth.

I just saw an episode of The Simpsons in which David Byrne appears and is driving a freshly-Simonized car when he decides to start dancing on the hood. He then proceded to fall of the hood and land in Moe's vehicle before being taken to an unspecified location to recreate the movie Misery.

Is that the reason the esteemed Mr. Byrne has chosen not to own a car?

I suppose it's possible, but there's more than one spandex outfit, as well as four pairs of socks and a couple of other items I can't identify and would rather not speculate about.

Unless costume changes are a regular part of Snobby's ride routine, I would maintain that what we are seeing is Snobby's freshly laundered wardrobe drying.

As for bathtub rings, I don't think that's even a bathtub. I'm pretty sure it's an automated drive washing machine. You drop your wheels, place the bike in the tub and those jets squirt a carefully calibrated sequence of stuff to clean and lube your drive gear.

Ummm... I don't actually own an Escalade or even a car for that matter. I just picked a recognizable symbol of excess as a non de plume to bring out the absurdity of the commenter's statement I was mocking.

I can't figure out why the turkeys don't just have a menage a trois. I mean......they are animals and have no conscience remorse of partner betrayal. Oh wait......the beak.......the beak is why. That can't be good.

StrongLightweightCorrosion ResistantCost-efficientNon-toxicBiocompatible (non-toxic AND not rejected by the body)Long-lastingNon-ferromagneticOsseointegrated (the joining of bone with artificial implant)Long range availabilityFlexibility and elasticity rivals that of human bone"

Aaaaaaaand the SR-71 had a titanium skin over its aluminum airframe to resist the incredible heat generated by mach 3 supersonic flight. That aeroplane still holds world records for fasted speeds 20 years after its retirement.

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About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!